Marathon Weekend Day 1

I’ve never done a great job on the trip reports, I typically just dump the whole trip in one post and hope for the best.  Not this time… I’m going to take the day by day approach and string everyone along for a while. 

Day 1 – Thursday January 6, 2011

Travel Day

So, after becoming a weatherman in the weeks prior, it was time to get on the plane and head for the World.  Woke up at 4:30a or something (which I thought was early…till I hit Saturday and Sunday morning).  Of course, it never really feels early when you’re heading out for a trip.  Checked my bag the night prior, so it was an easy drop off and on to security.  With all of the craziness around security and pat downs recently I was fully ready to call a psychiatrist right after security to discuss my repressed issues, but no such luck.  I went through the metal detector as I normally do (even got a compliment at how I correctly spread out my electronics and such in the correct baskets, still remember from my travelling days, ha!).  Skipped my usual McDonalds pre-trip breakfast and chose a coffee and a fiber-one bar that I had brought (starting out the trip with a good choice….good stuff).  Airport has free wi-fi, which is more than I can say for Disney…..when the heck are they going to get with the times… 

Flight was uneventful and as smooth a ride as it comes.  I chatted with a family in the row across from me.  The husband was going Goofy and the wife was running the half.  Had my Pfizer hat on, so the wife asked if I worked there…turns out, so did she, small world. J  Nice couple (and daughter).  Wished them luck as we walked through MCO and I bolted towards Magical Express.  There was a huge line at their check-in counter, which was the first time I’d seen that…cruisers maybe?  Anyhoo, I walked straight through to the Port Orleans line, waited for like 2 minutes and we got right on the bus.  Since the flight got in early, I was about 30 minute ahead of schedule, cool. 

Since it was only 11ish, I didn’t expect my room to be ready, but I checked in and viola, it was ready!  Port Orleans is a pretty large place, easy to get lost…which I did, but that comes later.  The room looked clean, but obviously not too far off from needing an update.  Had a mini fridge, which I didn’t expect since I didn’t ask for it (brochure said you need to ask…), but worked great for the several bottles of water I kept in it.   So, after investigating the room for a minute, I called Lorraine to chat.  Tough trip to be away from her and the kids, sure it sounds good in principle, but I did really miss them and the craziness that comes along with it.  Decided that next year we’d have to do this as a family.

So, I changed into shorts since the temps were probably in the mid 60’s (20’s at home) and I was rebelling against the bitter cold we experienced Marathon Weekend 2010.  Should have brought a sweatshirt though as I knew I was going to be out all evening.  Anyhoo, I hopped a bus to packet pick-up…excited…anticipation building….walked up like a pro since I had done this a couple of times…smiled at the folks directing traffic as if to say “no need for help, I got this”, and they nodded as if to say “yeah, yeah, move along you Goofy SOB…” LOL.  Yes, yes I am Goofy….this time..  Slight miscalculation though.  I went down to the main floor of the pick-up building and didn’t see the signs obviously noting that Goofy registration is upstairs on the other side of the building.  But the folks on the floor were very smiley and nice, and directed me correctly.  Picked-up the packed and moved quickly to the expo.  I noticed on my way out that they had marathon merchandise on the floor of the packet pickup.  Should have shopped there, mistake…  The Milk House was jam packed at noon on Thursday….but I squeaked through and got to pick-up my shirts/bibs.  Tried to slowly walk around the expo, but didn’t work out that well.  Wasn’t sure if it was because I really wanted to hit the parks, or if the crowds were making me uptight.  There was a line for everything…so I just exited and went back to the hotel. 

Dumped my stuff and hit the bus for Animal Kingdom (so sayeth the itinerary…).  Got to AK around 2p and ready for some protein refresh at the Flame Tree Bar-b-que, love this place.  It was the first spot where I really knew I was alone.  But hey, I had the swarming birds and my iPhone…so I kept busy as I made quick work of the rotisserie chicken.  After that, I hit Dinosaur, Primeval Whirl (1^st and last time on this one…what is Disney thinking here…).  I decided to make a game out of my trip to help me keep connected to home.  So I was taking ambiguous pictures of ride queue’s or the rides themselves..send them as e-mail to the family and see if they could “Guess where Daddy is”.  Between text and e-mail, I felt pretty connect to home without having to talk all that much.   At this point, Amanda texted me and we met up over at Everest.  I think I like the queue for Everest even more than the ride, but the ride IS cool even if the Yeti isn’t working…  Did a couple of other attractions and then out to the Wilderness Lodge for dinner at Whispering Canyon with Jeff, Justin and company.  Amanda covers this pretty well on her blog, so I won’t rehash the happenings there.  The one thing I can add is that I was pretty darn cold on the boat ride to the Contemporary (they wouldn’t let us over the MK to hop a resort bus there..too late…).  So we took the launch to the Contemporary thinking we could walk over the MK and catch the bus, but they turned us away and made us take the Downtown Disney bus from the Contemporary…then pick-up a bus to our resorts.  Still pretty cold….We got to Downtown Disney so I got off the bus, only to find out that the very bus I was on would then be going to Port Orleans…back in the line in the freezing cold…ugh.  Still, I made it on and got back to the hotel (think it was about 11p..).